Smartphones most popular handsets in UAE

According to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) 46 per cent registered handsets were smartphones, a figure that has increased during each quarter in the year.

The authority has released a report on the nation’s most popular mobile phone handsets, social networking platforms and applications websites. Investigating the current state of the market, the report reveals the market share of mobile phones in the UAE by manufacturer and model.

According to the report, the market was dominated by smartphones. The iPhone 5 was the most commonly used smartphone in the UAE with 2.8 per cent of the total handsets registered on networks.

The report illustrates that the Samsung SIII was the second most popular smartphone with 2.5 per cent of the market share, followed by iPhone 4S which had 2.3 per cent market share followed by iPhone 4 and BlackBerry 9900 both had 1.8 per cent market penetration.

Samsung S4 had 1.6 per cent market popularity, followed by Galaxy S Duos 1.2 per cent, BlackBerry Bold 9790 1.1 per cent and BlackBerry Bold 9780 one per cent.

According to TRA 56.2 per cent of all handsets registered on the UAE networks were manufactured by Nokia followed by Samsung 16.4 per cent and BlackBerry 10.2 per cent.

Apple had 7.8 per cent market share, followed by LG one per cent while Sony 0.9 per cent, Huawei 0.5 per cent and HTC 0.6 per cent.

Unlike Nokia and Blackberry, Samsung and Apple recorded increases in their market shares in the third quarter of the year.

During the third quarter, users of smartphones and fixed Internet services in the UAE visited various applications websites a total of 1.5 billion times. Apple iTunes was by far the most commonly visited applications website, followed by Nokia OVI, Samsung Apps, Blackberry App World and Android Applications.

In terms of social media, UAE smartphone and fixed Internet users made a total of 13.7 billion visits to social networking websites during the July- September quarter. Visits to Facebook accounted for 91 per cent of total visits to social networking sites, followed by Twitter with eight per cent of visits, Maktoob with 0.1 per cent, then LinkedIn and MySpace.

Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim, Director General, TRA, said: “The report provides results that will be of interest both to the public and, crucially, the manufacturers who supply the communications technology our nation has come to depend on.’’

Providing very distinct analysis of consumer adoption, the research reflects the nation’s dynamic ecosystem in which both feature phones and smartphones are driving sustained telecommunications sector growth.”